Hrithik Roshan

A very bold, unconventional, beautiful, talented, and of course brainy career-minded girl meets a typical Indian man of pedigree and strong career distinguished by his six-pack, macho, handsome looks… ooh grey eyes. He’s married to a gorgeous woman from an equally powerful background, and has two young kids with her.

Hrithik, your world had to explode. Kangana, you should have known better. Sussanne, kudos to you!

You know why I loved having this conversation recently with friend of mine? – besides the fact that everyone is tired of discussing Kanhaiya Kumar and Anupam Kher. Because we both find ourselves on similarly feminist wavelengths.

Once in a while, you’ve gotta let your hair down. ‘Coz, look even Shobha De has put in her two-bit on this affair, saying Let’s hear it for Kangana. Interestingly, the affair itself didn’t make such waves as has its fallout.

I’ve still gotta hand it to Shobha De, who has rightly spotted the ‘heroism’ in Kangana, with the step she took after Hrithik sent her a legal notice. Kangana has put her career at stake. She’s an outsider. But more importantly, she’s outspoken. The domino effect on her career will be telling. And this is after she had supposedly hit her highest high with her performance in ‘Queen’. Kangana a risk-taker? Check! Oh yes. Track record? Check.

‘Coz… Hrithik. Check again.

Can you believe the girl who filled reams of newsprint with her interviews about how she couldn’t do conventional roles requiring her to run around trees was actually a real-life Cinderella, being chased by this married guy – however hot – who’s ‘no-no’ actually transformed into a ‘yes-yes’ in due course of time? It’s not like she was being offered an extra golgappa, was she?

Totally creepy, especially given the mud-slinging during Hrithik’s Barbara Mori affair while they were shooting for the film Kites.

Moving on, Hrithik. Dude, you’ve come out looking like the typical Indian male – no hero goals from you! Just got no game. Indian men have never learnt to give, having learnt only to take. Adulation, praise, power, property, pleasure, happiness. They earn money and they brag. They ‘score’ and they brag. They cook once in a blue moon for their partner and they brag. They change a diaper and they brag. Bragging rights is all they’re after. This megalomania is culturally transmitted. But this is water under the bridge, sister!

I wanna say kudos to Sussanne. Got her own business going, got her own place, got two beautiful boys, her own friends, her life. Walked out in a glamorous haze, looking like a million bucks. Free. Any woman in her position ought to know that if it weren’t Kangana or Barbara Mori it would have been someone else. Isn’t it ironic then, that it’s ‘strong’, ‘feminist’ girls like Kangana who get caught in the net?

I see Sussanne as the real heroine in here. And I believe we’re banking on the wrong heroes and heroines. Sussanne, take a bow!

I remember a conversation – long, long back – with a sculptor with whom I’ve lost touch, on feminism. He was telling me the story of his old house-help who was still going on working, happily too, despite her advanced age. She hails from the Adivasi community back in North Gujarat, and years back, her husband had brought in another woman to live with him into the same house. She decided to look for work (or was she already working in homes, I don’t clearly remember now) and has since never stopped. When asked about what would have to be perceived as a humiliating situation back home, she replied matter-of-factly: I’m actually free now. With the second one coming in, I’m free of all expectations – of ‘satisfying him’, of bearing his children, of looking after the home; I can work, come and go as I please, make my own money. What more could I have asked for. Listening to her story became a defining moment in my life.